The Best Airline Captain Announcement Ever Came On A British Airways 747 After All Four Engines Failed...

In 1982, a British Airways 747 flew into a cloud of volcanic ash
near Indonesia.

One by one, all four of its engines failed.

After falling more than 25,000 feet and preparing to ditch in the
Indian Ocean, the plane's crew eventually got the engines
restarted. So the story had a happy ending.

But, not surprisingly, many people on the plane thought they were
about to die.

I am old enough to remember this incident, but I had forgotten
something important about it: What the plane's captain said to
the passengers the moment after the engines failed. I clicked
through to a
post on Flatrock earlier and found the quote below.

Captain Eric Moody was later praised for a cabin announcement
that was described as "a masterpiece of understatement."

The crew's intense focus on the problem (without false
assurances that they could fix it)

Concern for the well-being of the passengers (without being
patronizing)

A dry sense of perspective that probably did more to relax
the passengers than thousands of words of explanation ever could
have.

Captain Eric MoodyBA

Here's what Moody said:

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We have a
small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our
damnedest to get them going again. I trust you are not in too
much distress."

On 24 June 1982, the route was flown by the City of
Edinburgh, a 747-236B. The aircraft flew into a cloud of
volcanic ash thrown up by the eruption of
Mount Galunggung (approximately 180 kilometres
(110 mi) south-east of Jakarta, Indonesia), resulting in the failure of all four
engines. The reason for the failure was not immediately apparent
to the crew or ground control. The aircraft was diverted to
Jakarta in the hope that enough engines could be restarted to
allow it to land there. The aircraft was able to glide far enough
to exit the ash cloud, and all engines were restarted (although
one failed again soon after), allowing the aircraft to land
safely at the Halim Perdanakusuma Airport in
Jakarta.

The crew members of the incident segment had boarded the aircraft
in Kuala Lumpur, while many of the passengers had been aboard
since the flight began in London.[2]

As the flight progressed, smoke began to accumulate in the
passenger cabin of the aircraft; it was first assumed to be
cigarette smoke. However, it soon began to grow thicker and had
an ominous odour of sulphur. Passengers who had a view out the
aircraft windows noted that the engines were unusually bright,
with light shining forward through the fan blades and producing a
stroboscopic effect.[3]

At approximately 13:42 UTC (20:42 Jakarta time), engine number
four began surging and soon flamed
out. The flight crew immediately performed the engine
shutdown drill, quickly cutting off fuel supply and arming the
fire extinguishers. Less than a minute later, at 13:43 UTC (20:43
Jakarta time), engine two surged and flamed out. Within seconds,
and almost simultaneously, engines one and three flamed out,
prompting the flight engineer to exclaim, "I don't believe it—all
four engines have failed!"[3]

Without engine thrust, a 747-200 has a glide ratio of approximately 15:1,
meaning it can glide forward 15 kilometres for every kilometre it
drops. The flight crew quickly determined that the aircraft was
capable of gliding for 23 minutes and covering 91 nautical miles
(169 km) from its flight level of 37,000 feet
(11,000 m).[3]
At 13:44 UTC (20:44 Jakarta time), Greaves declared an emergency to the local
air traffic control authority, stating
that all four engines had failed. However, Jakarta Area Control
misunderstood the message, interpreting the call as meaning that
only engine number four
had shut down. It was only after a nearby Garuda Indonesia flight relayed the
message to Air Traffic Control that it was correctly understood.
Despite the crew "squawking" the emergency transponder setting of 7700, the
aeroplane could not be located by Air Traffic Control on their
radar screens.

Many passengers, fearing for their lives, wrote notes to
relatives. One such passenger was Charles Capewell, who scrawled
"Ma. In trouble. Plane going down. Will do best for boys. We love
you. Sorry. Pa XXX" on the cover of his ticket wallet.[2]

Owing to the high Indonesian mountains on the south coast of the
island of Java, an altitude of at least 11,500 feet
(3,500 m) was required to cross the coast safely. The crew
decided that if the aircraft was unable to maintain altitude by
the time they reached 12,000 feet (3,700 m) they would turn
back out to sea and attempt to ditch into the Indian Ocean. The crew began
engine restart drills, despite being well above the recommended
maximum engine in-flight start envelope altitude of 28,000 feet
(8,500 m). The restart attempts failed.

Despite the lack of time, Moody made an announcement to the
passengers that has been described as "a masterpiece of understatement":[3]

Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We have a
small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our
damnedest to get them going again. I trust you are not in too
much distress.[3][4][5]

As pressure within the cabin fell, oxygen masks dropped from the
ceiling — an automatic emergency measure to make up for the lack
of air. On the flight deck, however, Greaves's mask was broken;
the delivery tube had detached from the rest of the mask. Moody
swiftly decided to descend at 1,800 m per minute to an
altitude where there was enough pressure in the outside
atmosphere to breathe almost normally.

At 13,500 feet (4,100 m), the crew was approaching the
altitude at which they would have to turn over the ocean and
attempt a risky ditching. Although there were guidelines for the
water landing procedure, no one had ever tried it in a Boeing
747, nor has anyone since. As they performed the engine restart
procedure, engine number four finally started, and at 13:56 UTC
(20:56 Jakarta time), Moody used its power to reduce the rate of
descent. Shortly thereafter, engine three restarted, allowing him
to climb slowly. Shortly after that, engines one and two
successfully restarted as well.[6]
The crew subsequently requested and expedited an increase in
altitude in order to clear the high mountains of
Indonesia.[7]

As the aircraft approached its target altitude, the St Elmo's fire effect on
the windscreen returned. Moody throttled back; however, engine
number two surged again and was shut down. The crew immediately
descended and held 12,000 feet (3,700 m).

As Flight 9 approached Jakarta, the crew found it difficult to
see anything through the windscreen, and made the approach almost
entirely on instruments, despite reports of good visibility. The
crew decided to fly the ILS (Instrument
Landing System); however, the glide slope (vertical guidance)
system was inoperative, so they were forced to fly with only the
localizer (lateral guidance) as the first officer monitored the
airport's DME (Distance
Measuring Equipment). He then called out how high they should
be at each DME step along the final approach to the runway,
creating a virtual glide slope for them to follow. It was, in
Moody's words, "a bit like negotiating one's way up a badger's
arse."[1]
Although the runway lights could be made out through a small
strip of the windscreen, the landing lights on the aircraft
seemed to be inoperable. After landing, the flight crew found it
impossible to taxi, due to glare from apron floodlights which
made the already sandblasted windscreen opaque.

Aftermath

Post-flight investigation revealed that City of
Edinburgh's problems had been caused by flying through a
cloud of volcanic ash from the eruption of
Mount Galunggung. Because the ash cloud was dry,
it did not appear on the weather radar, which was designed to
detect the moisture in clouds. The cloud sandblasted the
windscreen and landing light covers and clogged the engines. As
the ash entered the engines, it melted in the combustion chambers
and adhered to the inside of the power-plant. As the engine
cooled from inactivity, and as the aircraft descended out of the
ash cloud, the molten ash solidified and enough broke off for air
to again flow smoothly through the engine, allowing a successful
restart. The engines had enough electrical power to restart
because one generator and the onboard batteries were still
operating; electrical power was required for ignition of the
engines.

Engines one, two and three were replaced at Jakarta, as well as
the windscreen, and the fuel tanks were cleared of the ash that
had entered them through the pressurisation ducts, contaminating
the fuel and requiring that it be disposed of. After being
ferried back to London, engine number four was replaced and major
work was undertaken to return the aircraft to service.

Although the airspace around Mount Galunggung was closed
temporarily after the incident, it was reopened days later. It
was only after a Singapore Airlines 747 was forced to
shut down three of its engines while flying through the same area
nineteen days later (13 July) that Indonesian authorities closed
the airspace permanently and rerouted airways to avoid the area;
a watch was set up to monitor clouds of ash.[3]
Flight 9 was not the first encounter with this eruption — a
Garuda DC-9 had encountered ash on 5 April
1982.[8]

One of the passengers, Betty Tootell, wrote a book about the
incident, All Four Engines Have Failed. She managed to
trace some 200 of the 247 passengers on the flight, and went on
to marry a fellow survivor, James Ferguson, who had been seated
in the row in front of her. She notes: "The 28th December 2006
marks the start of our 14th year of honeymoon, and on the 24th
June 2007 many passengers and crew will no doubt gather to
celebrate the 25th anniversary of our mid-air adventure."[10]

British Airways continued to operate the Flight 9 route from
London Heathrow to Sydney; in March 2012 the route was
curtailed to Bangkok. City of Edinburgh,
later renamed City of Elgin, continued to fly for
British Airways after the incident, before being sold to European Aviation Air
Charter. The aircraft was taken out of service in February
2004; in 2009, the then 30-year-old aircraft was scrapped. In
September 2009 the environmental group 10:10
bought the fuselage of City Of Edinburgh to be made into
tags. The tags, bearing the campaign's logo, were worn as
necklaces or bracelets and used to raise awareness of 10:10's
work: the organisation aimed to persuade individuals,
organizations and businesses to reduce their carbon emissions by
10% in 2010.[11]

The incident featured in an episode of the Mayday
documentary TV series Air Crash Investigation titled
"Falling From the Sky". This episode was repeated a number of
times when the Eyjafjallajökull
volcano caused a large-scale shutdown of European airspace.

Captain Eric Moody gave an interview to the July 2010 edition of
Flaps Podcast, where he
recounted his experience.

Similar
incident

A nearly identical incident occurred on 15 December 1989 when
KLM Flight 867, a Boeing 747-400 from
Amsterdam to Anchorage, Alaska, flew into the plume of
the erupting Mount Redoubt,
causing all four engines to fail due to compressor stall. Once the flight cleared
the ash cloud, the crew was able to restart each engine and then
make a safe landing at Anchorage.[12]